Book Review: "Yellowface" by R F. Kuang

R.F Kuang's novel was introduced to me as I had heard about it through the book club run by Reese Witherspoon. It sounded as though it was going to be a novel dedicated to exposing the ironies, pitfalls and stupors of the writing world and publishing industry, fleshing out all of the toxicity that lies beneath the surface. I was right to a degree. It does go into the lives of these unlikeable middle class nonsensical characters who have no understanding of real life. However, I found myself expecting the writing to be something more. With name-dropping, abrupt references to social media that come out of nowhere and too many characters with the same sort of voice - I can honestly say that the concept of the book is brilliant and the deeper meaning has been hit on the head. However, the attention to detail is poor and the narrative voice is all over the place.

The novel Yellowface is about a woman who watches her friend die and then steals her unpublished novel for editing and publication. Since this happens, a lot of the vitriolic hatred towards the new author unfolds on social media as discoveries are made here and there. Ultimately, our narrator wants the reader to believe that her friend's ghost is following her but maybe, just maybe, something else is happening here that she is not fully aware of. The storyline itself is brilliant. It was a shame about the way it was written.

I have to say that for a graduate of Yale, the protagonist is not really all that smart. I am not talking about how much she knows about her subject, but rather her common sense. She just doesn't think logically most of the time and without spoiling some major plot points I can honestly say that this frustrated me because it's the trope of the 'dumber and jealous friend' being perpetuated by someone who cannot write that character very well. For example, throughout the book, June is seen as the 'less than' friend but then starts coming out with random references to Raphael and profundities which prove her intelligence in thought. But her actions don't reflect that she's this kind of human being. There's a lot to unpack there and I don't think it flowed correctly.

The second criticism I have for this book is that it is not accessible to everyone. Most of the novel's dark and horrifying aspects are told through social media tirades. For those people who do not use things like Instagram and TikTok, the book becomes an unfamiliar mess and a bit of lazy writing. I feel like the author relied too heavily on the social media side of the story and not enough on telling us more about the character's motivations and exploring the deeper psychological parts of June's life. I have to say, as someone who does not use social media a great deal and has never actually used TikTok at all, there were parts where I thought I wasn't being brought into the world of the story. As a side note though, I cannot see someone who has a professional job sitting there on social media for the lengths of time suggested in the novel. I find it a bit strange that it made such a large appearance. The name-dropping of social media terms would be a nightmare for anyone who has not encountered things like CreepyPasta in their lives.

Some people have described this novel as a satire and a horror story. Honestly, I think the social media storyline in the third act took away any chance of the book being anything psychological or horrifying and the idea of satire, though well-explored, was underdeveloped. I believe this one might be on me though. You see, when there is something horrible happening on social media, you can simply not use the application or delete the application altogether (if you have the chance). The idea that the hatred and the psychological damage was coming down the pipeline of social media and yet, this is meant to be a character who has a background in academia and she is also meant to be a terrible human being and then on top of all of this she is the 'dumber and jealous friend' of the dead woman is not just far-fetched - it's rather stupid. There's no reason she simply would not just choose not to use the social media applications or, more believable yet, pass it on to a PR.

At the end of the day, I do not think this novel was for me though it has plenty of potential. There was far too much celebrity name-dropping, social media rubbish and just emptiness of characters. The narrative voice was all messed up and I do not think I could read something like this again.